Kinematic and kinetic measurements have been made for the purpose of understanding human physiology, for diagnosing disorders, for sports study, and for sport performance improvement. Movement data has been collected by a variety of measurement techniques including by devices attached to the body, and by cameras detecting movement of body parts, and by detecting movement of specially marked points on a body.
Specialized sports, clinical, and research use of this technology have included the coaching of elite athletes, predicting the later appearance of Cerebral Palsy symptoms in infants, and tracking improvements over a course of treatment. Costs of dynamic body motion and force measurement devices have lowered and biomechanical knowledge has increased. However, the wide array and complexity of possible human motions, the large amount of raw data generated, and particularly a lack of results that are useful without expert interpretation, have significantly limited the routine exploitation of the tools and techniques of this field. Inexpensive and routinized solutions to incorporate motion-based measurements into everyday health care can have a great importance in overall cost control.